July 2, 2011

ForProfit.edu: Wherein I Probably Offend Everyone, But No Matter

Filed under: Politics — PolitiCalypso @ 1:15 pm

It seems that there is a battle brewing over the new Department of Education guidelines on issuing student loans to people who intend to enroll at for-profit schools such as the University of Phoenix.  The whole business is, in my opinion, a perfect example of the cynical dishonesty that both sides of politics in the U.S. exude, and I am going to say—and provide evidence for the assertion—that the side that is opposed to these regulations is determinedly missing a significant point in this.  All I can figure is that, unless it is poor idealistic blindness to what’s going on with these schools and many of the people that enroll, this is one of the most cynical positions I have ever seen taken in politics.  I am perfectly aware that what I am about to say may come off as angry, cold-blooded, and heartless.  Maybe that is indeed the case.  I’ve considered it before.  However, there is not a false word in this account.  Sometimes the truth is ugly and people are not what you want to believe they are.  I assure you, when I first started witnessing what I am about to describe, it was a total shell-shock to my then-rather liberal sensibilities. But as a scientist, I do not ignore valid data.

For background, as soon as the Department of Education issued guidelines requiring that a certain percentage of students graduate and find gainful employment for a school to be eligible for federal loans (which come from taxpayers’ money), the Republican Party and the conservative pundit establishment started to cry foul. There have been a variety of attacks used against these regulations. One of them is the expected attack that it is an anti-business move, since for-profit schools were singled out. I’m not going to address this; it is nothing but speculation and is irrelevant to my forthcoming point. Another, which in my opinion is extraordinarily cynical, is the attack that it is a way to keep low-income people from learning useful skills that can help them to find good jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, thereby keeping them on the dole (and the implication is that people on the dole are more likely to vote for politicians that continue or expand the dole).

Okay, that is relevant, as we shall see. However, the federal dole is not relevant in the way that conservatives who have taken on this issue seem to want to think it is.

For over a year, I worked in a computer lab where I frequently found myself assisting people in filling out FAFSA forms and enrollment applications. Now, there are, locally, two community colleges within 40 miles. There are two public four-year universities within 40 miles. There are even more traditional options within an expanded distance. These schools all have online classes, non-degree programs, and the community colleges offer technical degrees (career degrees that don’t transfer to a four-year Bachelor’s program) and job training. The cost of attending one of these schools is significantly less than attending an online for-profit college.

Well, consider this: If you are already living full-time on the dole, you aren’t thinking long-term, you perhaps have a history of ignoring financial obligations, and word gets around that you can get an order of magnitude more “student loan” money by pretending to be a student in a for-profit online school than you would by enrolling in a local college, what do you do?

That’s not speculation. I saw this happen. Each term, it would be a different for-profit online college that was selected as the vehicle for, essentially, stealing taxpayer money. Each term, the same group of locals would come into this facility, fill out their paperwork for enrolling in the exact same online school, fill out their FAFSA for obtaining student loans, including the personal expense stipend, and then fill out the school’s form for releasing as much of that money as possible to their own pocketbooks. They would make the pretense of enrolling in classes, often the same set of classes, and then… they would not do any homework. They would ignore their assignments. If the school had a policy that actually allowed the instructors to fail students (and not all of these places do), then no matter, because the “students” would have another for-profit college selected for the following term.  As long as they maintain constant enrollment, you see, the loans don’t fall due, and they can keep the cash flow coming.  With that, the process would begin again.   (That said, some of them must default at some point, because I strongly believe that this is part of why there is a high default rate on loans for for-profits.  However, people with the mentality I have described probably don’t care all that much about bad credit.  The only people who really pay a price are taxpayers who subsidize this.)

There was not a solitary thing any of us employees could do about it, because we could not possibly prove the intention to defraud.  And I am sorry, but this is fraud under any definition of the word, even if it is impossible to prosecute as such. I don’t know how widespread it is on a national scale, but there is a very distinct possibility that the poor statistics for for-profit colleges are not entirely due to subpar teaching, but to “students” who are taking advantage of their very loose admission criteria to steal from taxpayers and have no intention of acquiring an education. Unfortunately for everyone, the dole is set up so that one pretty much can live off it indefinitely (deservedly or not), as long as the right boxes are checked on the application forms and every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed. There have been whistleblowers before who have called attention to the fact that people are, in some places, actually taught how to fill out government forms to maximize the amount they get.  It should come as no surprise that a scheme like I have described would spring up.

None of this should be construed to mean that this deceitful activity is all that I ever saw at this job. There were many students who enrolled in online programs, both at the local public colleges and even some at for-profit colleges, who actually were sincere in their intention to learn something. They came back to this public computer lab to do their homework online and were concerned with their grades. And it’s been long enough now since I had that job that I would not trust myself to identify anyone in particular by sight as either an honest student or a fraudster. I can say with certainty that the dishonest ones made up at least a third of the whole adult “student” group that used these computers for any purpose. However, this isn’t about accusing anyone by name; it is about blowing a whistle on a practice that I have not seen anyone in the political sphere touch on when they talk about this issue. There may indeed be villainy on the part of some people involved with these for-profit schools in recruiting honest students with dishonest marketing. However, there is definitely villainy on the part of some purported “students” who merely want to dishonestly get their hands on federal cash.

It is incredibly disingenuous of these conservatives to act as though the regulations are a diabolical plot on the part of the Obama Administration to keep impoverished people from learning anything so they’ll stay on welfare and vote Democratic. Excuse me, but that is far too idealistic a view of the motives of some of the “students”—unless it is, in fact, just a cynical political ploy to paint the opposition as villains even if it means going against one’s principles.  If it really is ignorant idealism about the “students” and the cynicism is about the administration, then I’m afraid I must burst their bubble, but I have facts on my side from personal observation: At least some percentage of these “students” have no intention of getting off the dole and regard student loans for for-profit colleges as yet another form of it! They select these places because they get the largest amount of money for it and don’t have any difficulty in getting admitted.  Tuition at some of them apparently compares to that of an Ivy League university. All that federal cash without the rejections in the application process. And I honestly wouldn’t put it past some of the online schools to be perfectly aware of this and to not really object to it, since they get a cut of the federal money too. Why else would they admit “students” who provide transcripts from six different online schools that contain nothing but Fs (because the “students” have not done anything)?

Since you cannot order schools to adjust their admission standards and definitely cannot police the motives and future intentions of people who apply for student loan money, the only real options to keep taxpayers from being defrauded are either to completely abolish the federal student loan program (which would make college unaffordable for huge numbers of students or throw them to the tender mercies of private loan companies) or to set standards for the schools if they want to receive federal money.  If the poor performance of for-profit schools is in significant part due to fraudulent activity on the part of “students,” then that is a motivation (not a mandate, mind) to these schools to stop admitting people that have highly suspicious records.  If this were all private, of course, it would be a moot point for the government, but the taxpayer has a stake in this.  If dishonest fake students are prevented from enrolling and making off like bandits with student loan money, because they cannot get admitted with their past history, then everyone wins—the schools, the honest students, and the taxpayers.

Lastly, in case anyone gets the idea that I’ve only penned this to defend a policy of a Democratic administration, I’d like to note two things.  One, I have had serious complaints with them, and not always from the left side.  And two, this despicable student loan practice I have described so infuriated me as a taxpayer, an honest graduate student, and a person subsisting on a working-class income that it arguably killed off any vestige of… well, I can’t even think of any term for it other than “welfare-state progressivism.”  Whatever of that I once had is gone, and the rude awakening I had with this is why that happened. The fact that I’m using such an expression should tell just how much I have disowned that part of the philosophy.  I’m writing this piece because my conscience compels me to, not because of some partisan or ideological reason.

 

(blog claim: 5QUKZUA8U4TF)

April 28, 2009

Wherein I Reiterate Something I’ve Said

Filed under: Politics — PolitiCalypso @ 6:16 pm

I cannot say I’m too happy right now about Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party. Sure, I think it’s hilarious, but underneath that, there are implications that trouble me. Although I now consider myself an unaffiliated independent voter, my views are certainly to the left of the Southern majority, so I generally end up voting for Democrats at the national level and I take an interest in what direction the party is moving. As far as that goes, I really don’t mind that Specter is a moderate on certain issues, but I am troubled by his (current) refusal to switch his support in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for employees to form a union and would give them the right to choose how they wanted to do that. I’ve come to believe that widespread unionization was a major driving force behind the boom period of the 1950s, in which household wealth (real wealth, not debt) skyrocketed and the country’s GDP grew. Unionization levels the playing field significantly in the private sector, taking away the near-absolute power that managers would otherwise have to determine salaries, benefits, and working conditions. EFCA is a good bill and it needs to become law.

Therefore it is my hope that, despite his statements that he will not switch to supporting this bill, Specter does come around. If this happens, I don’t think it would be a self-centered political move like this party switch indisputably is. Specter has a very long track record of supporting labor, which is why the unions in Pennsylvania have tended to support his election campaigns. If anything, his statement that he would oppose EFCA was a self-centered political move, a failed Hail Mary pass to try to get him through the Republican primary next year. He may very well decide to support it after all if that is where his true convictions (such as they are) lie. After all, he went on record as saying that he would not switch party affiliation, and look what happened.

In any case, whether Specter switches back on EFCA remains to be seen. I’d tentatively bet on it, but I think it would take time for him to announce that. There are other issues relating to this man’s switch, though, that are actually far more troublesome. (Read more…)

February 24, 2009

Why Southern Moderates Should Run as GOP

Filed under: Politics — PolitiCalypso @ 7:01 pm

I’ve never been able to understand why everyone to the left of Pat Robertson chooses to run for office on the Democratic ticket in the Southeast region. It’s inadvisable in this region (except for those positions that are specifically for Democratic districts, like the absurdly gerrymandered Congress) as a personal electoral strategy, because—again, with that noted exception—the Southeast in general votes Republican by default. And it’s foolish as a long-term strategy for anyone who is troubled by the dominance of Religious Right theocratic politics in this region.

Let’s go ahead and get a few things out of the way. First, since this is unfortunately usually associated with Southern politics in some way, the recommendations I offer are not specific to any given race of people—but rather, to moderates of any ancestry. Secondly, I am not talking about voting. I’m talking about those with political ambitions. I’m talking about running for office. Third, I am not necessarily singling out moderates to the exclusion of others, but my advice is addressed to them because I have yet to meet a self-identified liberal who also would consider running on the Republican ticket. If you’re one of those endangered creatures, then you can take this advice too.

I think that a major shift is needed in the way political candidates are recruited in the Southeast. Specifically, I think it is LONG past time for moderates to run in Republican primaries rather than Democratic ones. All too often, we end up with elected representatives who are utter embarrassments, because no one runs for GOP nominations except the Pat Robertson crowd (or hypocrites who pretend to be of that mold) and the South defaults Republican.

The theocratic ideology has no place in U.S. politics or law. I have always felt this way. I recall writing an essay for school at age 15 or 16 explaining why school-led prayer was unconstitutional. My reasons for it are more sophisticated in understanding now, but the views themselves have not changed.

The idealized purpose of law is to set out standards of morally acceptable behavior. Naturally, this ideal often becomes corrupted in practice, but in the exists-only-on-paper view, this is why we have laws. The idea is that moral behavior keeps a society stable. I think that part of the reason why so many Religious Right types don’t get it is that they don’t understand what the source of that morality must be. In the U.S., the moral basis for a law must be secular. Certainly there can be overlap between a religious basis of morality and a secular one, but a law (or potential law) is defensible only if it has a basis in secular morality. For instance, bans on murder and robbery can be defended on a non-religious basis. A ban on, say, same-sex marriage really can’t be defended on a moral basis unless you invoke religious dogma. (Yeah, I went there.) This is the problem with the Religious Right: It wants to have the church involved in governing. Don’t believe those who use the scare tactic that so-and-so wants to “ban religion.” No one with remotely mainstream political beliefs would consider it right to prevent churches from promoting their agenda through private venues. Let them speak on the media, let them use free speech and free assembly to push what they want, but keep their moral opinions out of government unless those moral opinions can be successfully defended without invoking holy texts. And, incidentally, it goes both ways: Keep the government out of the church too unless it breaks a law.

The governing philosophy of the Religious Right—the Religious Right as a political movement—is antithetical to the form of government that we have in the United States. The framers of the Constitution made it very clear. They did not put any restrictions on government interference in economic matters, but rather, left it up to future leaders and citizens to determine how much government involvement in the economy that they wanted. Libertarianism and liberalism are therefore both Constitutionally valid economic philosophies. But for moral matters—social policy and law—it is very clear that religion cannot be the sole basis. The Religious Right as a political movement is arguably dangerous to our form of government, and they have taken over a major political party.

With this point, I return to the original subject of this post. I’ll reiterate it: An antidemocratic ideology has taken over a major political party. In large part, this was caused by a massive recruitment drive in the 1980s and 1990s by Religious Right organizations. Those entities encouraged theocratically inclined people to run for office as Republicans, and over the years, they managed to change the makeup of that party. To reverse this damage will require a lot more than voting Republicans out of office. That is not a true reversal because it does not address the change that really happened, and it keeps that major political party in theocrat hands still. Moderate and non-theocratic Republicans were “primaried” out of office or gradually retired until only the theocrats were left. To undo the theocratic revolution, moderates must regain a voice within the GOP.

Since the South is the GOP stronghold of the nation, it makes sense that the change should begin here. Primaries in general, especially at local levels, have an uncanny tendency to be personal rather than ideological. They are decided quite often by who put out the most signs and advertisements, who has the best network, and who has the best get-out-the-vote operation. Since it usually is not about ideology, moderates stand a fighting chance at being nominated. And the Republican tilt of the Southeast gives them an automatic advantage in the general election. Certainly, some primaries would result in a theocratic person being nominated anyway, but a major change like this would take time to effect. However, the “everyone knows everyone” aspect of local primaries could also result in a weeding out of some of the Religious Right hypocrites who have skeletons in their closets. It’s a win-win.

It’s important to protect the political process from belief systems that are antithetical to our Constitutional government. This could require some people to take actions that they would see as very cynical and manipulative. Southerners who identify as something other than conservative (or even who do identify as conservative but not Religious Right—i.e., libertarians) may have psychological aversions to calling themselves GOP, but if they’re considering going into politics, they will have to deal with real-world strategy soon enough. Might as well begin immediately.

March 5, 2007

Another Offensive Remark Made at CPAC

Filed under: Katrina,Politics — PolitiCalypso @ 8:22 am

Why does the Conservative Political Action Conference have any credibility in Republican political circles? It’s apparently little more than a hate-fest in which the speakers run a race to the bottom.

By this time anyone who follows politics has heard about the ugly rantings of Ann Coulter, and her homophobic slur against John Edwards. The condemnation from all sides has been absolutely justified. This woman has been allowed to get away with spewing verbal vomit for far too long without being held to account for it in a meaningful way. She’s the one who, if you’ll recall, made nasty remarks about the 9/11 widows because they held politics other than her own. Now, I’m all for free speech. However, when I say “allowed to get away with” what she does, I simply mean that her brand of political “commentary” should disqualify her from the pundit’s seat that she has occupied for a long time. She has the right to say it, but what she has to say adds no value to the political system and shouldn’t be given airtime.

However, there was another remark made that is, arguably, equally offensive, if not more so. This remark has had very little coverage except on the blogs. I only discovered it myself from the Blog for Our Future coverage, via Crooks and Liars.

For your reading pleasure, Newt Gingrich on Hurricane Katrina victims:

How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn’t get out of the way of a hurricane.

Failure of citizenship? Uneducated and unprepared? OK, unprepared, maybe, although that is really glossing over the truth about the 9th Ward. But it doesn’t take an education to know that a monster hurricane is bearing down on your city, especially when the television coverage is about virtually nothing else. (And I am reasonably sure that, despite poverty, most households did have televisions. About 99% of U.S. households do.) They were simply unable to leave because they didn’t have the means to get out.

The financial means. Evacuation is not cost-free.

So, knowing that the hurricane was coming, they went to the Superdome, went to the Convention Center, barricaded themselves in their homes, and waited it out. It was the best they could do with what they had.

As a Southern politician, Gingrich ought to know better. Even Haley Barbour, as much as I dislike him, wouldn’t make a remark like that–if only because he’s too slick a politician to do it. Newt Gingrich apparently has been out of politics for long enough that he’s lost his touch, and now he’s just spouting the right-wing Social Darwinist line without even attempting to gloss it over. “You suffered and died in a tragedy that didn’t have to happen, so it’s your fault for being ‘uneducated’ and poor.” The Social Darwinist part of the American political system really does not comprehend poverty. It doesn’t compute. To them, all the problems in someone’s life that are caused by money can be solved with a quick fix, and it’s the fault of the individual for not taking advantage of this imaginary quick fix.

To return to the beginning of this piece, I think it’s time for respectable Republican politicians to stay away from CPAC. If this is the level of commentary there, then it does no one any credit who attends it.

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